


She used to be mine

by strngrmills



Category: Mamma Mia! (Movies)
Genre: Broadway, F/F, New York City, gays in love, hes nice but we need drama, please dont hate me, soft bill bashing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 09:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16134821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strngrmills/pseuds/strngrmills
Summary: Tanya is so tired of her current life... she needs a change, a new job, maybe to stop thinking about Rosie as well. But she can't, so her only choice is to suck it up, move on and work on her wounds all by herself... or not.





	She used to be mine

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my beloved Cris, more Rosya content for you <3

New York, 1985.

 

The Dynamos were over. It was a hard pillow to swallow, but it was the truth. It hurt, but they couldn’t do anything about it. No one could. She still thought about them, she still missed them. Donna was living in Greece with Sam and Sophie and it was all great, but Roise was nowhere to be seen. She knew that the shorty girl had to marry Bill because of her pregnancy, and the couple moved to some point in Sweden. Tanya was the only Dynamo that was still trying to fit it. Living in New York wasn’t easy, especially when you degree didn’t offer many job options; she was still trying to be a star, but she was getting older too. Tanya had turned 28 last week and she was single, on the verge of homelessness, and with a miserable job as a waitress on a restaurant where she was anything but happy. She had made her peace with Donna’s choice; after all, the blonde Dynamo had a child and an island to explore, she wanted to give Sophie the family she never had, and Sam was crazy about her, so Donna was living the closest thing to her dream. However, her thing with Rosie was harder: the british Dynamo married overnight, invited Tanya, but the tall brunette couldn’t bring herself to go to the wedding or the baby’s birth, she couldn’t handle it. After leaving Donna at Kalokairi, the two had promised each other they would never part ways, that they would explore Europe that summer… but Rosie and Bill hooked up in a bar in Amsterdam and Tanya couldn’t bare it. She felt betrayed at the time, feeling as if Rosie had left her on the side to move on on her own. Ironically, Tanya was the girl with the highest percentage of becoming a suburban mom, which never happened. Six years had passed, and Tanya was away from everyone, trying to live one day at a time, without friends or family or anyone else to lean on. She was a mess.

The worst part was that she still knew about them: she still talked to Donna from time to time, who updated her on Rosie’s life. It was funny, because she went from being a diva to being an attempted singer. Everyone else had moved on and she was still frozen on time, in a parallel universe.

Looking through her stuff and with a bottle of cheap vodka on her hand, she recalled the times when she and the two other girls ruled Oxford, when they wouldn’t sleep at night, when they would flirt with any guy. She missed being young, she missed her old life. She was getting drunk too, too emotional to properly function. She had a semi broken piano, a box of pictures, a dirty kitchen, a fully broken WC and a tiny bed. That was her life: her studio on New York, her night shifts at the Dinner, the cold winters, the vodka. It sucked.

She kept looking through the old pics and diaries, laughing at what Rosie wrote on a polaroid Tanya took of her while she was getting the Oxford award to journalists, even if Rosie’s major was nursery. It said “I was never attention's sweet center”, and Tanya disagreed then. Rosie was brilliant as a student and as an activist. She made the whole building become feminist, she made everyone admit that love or gender should not give you or take away your rights. The dark haired woman always admitted that she admired her friend, she just wished she found someday someone as perfect as her. She never did. She kept looking, finding this time a polaroid Donna took of the two of them dancing outside Oxford right after an exam. They were holding hands, staring at each other, it quoted “ Now I've got you”, which was a reality back then, because Rosie and Tanya were an inseparable duo, a trio if you included the blonde american. 

It was sad to think how they both ended: Tanya was now an alcoholic lesbian with no money for heating, and Rosie was the faithful wife who let her husband hurt her. She hated it, she hated the distance and her own pride that didn’t let her contact Rosie because fuck her, she left me when I needed her the most, and I know she owned me nothing and I wanted her to be free but not with that moron but with me-

She’s crying. She’s on the stained floor of the studio crying her eyes out, hoping for a change that will never come because she’s too tired to try to make a change. She just wants to smash the piano keyboard, to yell, to punch the wall until she bleeds. She wants to be someone she’s not because the real Tanya is bitter and agressive and the old Tanya is smiley and funny and misses her.

But she’s not gonna call Rosie or Donna. She has no money to do so. She won’t contact her parents either, and probably not her sibilings.

She wakes up the next morning, everything hurts. She has a call from her boss and, she thought the phone was not working because she hadn’t paid the bills, but apparently she’s wrong. The first one is Donna’s, she says Rosie in on a delicate situation with Bill, that she flew to Stockholm to support her, she invites Tanya, but Tanya knows she’s uninvited, so she doesn’t bothers with answering her friends. Are they still friends? She not one hundred percent sure. Then her boss says she’s fired, that she won’t go back and Tanya knows it’s gonna be a tough month, but a part of her feels relieved because the original, real Tanya is no good at smiling and playing the goody two shoes. That’s just not her. She dresses with the few clothes that are not wrinkled and goes out to explore options. She knows there’s a casting to write the soundtrack of a musical, but she’s not sure she should go, she’s too bad at writing to even try. But sadly, it’s the only Broadway job offer she may found, and she needs the money. At this point, she’s starting to consider prostitution, even if it wreaks her. It doesn’t really matter, she’s already shattered inside. 

She knows she has to propose a song, something to get her a bit close to Broadway, and she has just a few hours. When she sits by the piano, the only expensive thing she owns in the city, she feels clumsy. She hasn’t played anything in months, maybe even in years, and her brain remembers but her hands are too lazy and sleepy to do the task. The instrument has the pictures and diaries scattered all over it, and she has to make room for her bruised fingers.

 

_ “It's not simple to say _

_ That most days I don't recognize me _

_ That these shoes and this apron _

_ That place and its patrons _

_ Have taken more than I gave them” _

 

She gets up, this is stupid. She can’t get the right melody, she used to be able to put all that was in her mind on the paper but now she just stares at it, unable to vocalise her feelings. She was useless as a waitress and it was draining her but she had no choice. Lately it felt like her day a day wasn’t hers. She had bags under her eyes, her fringe was too long, she had lost weight and she was too serious, too dead. 

 

_ “It's not easy to know _

_ I'm not anything like I used be, although it's true _

_ I was never attention's sweet center _

_ I still remember that girl” _

 

Tanya wasn’t sure why she had written that. At some point, her brain shifted the attention to Rosie, to who she was. The Rosie she knew was bubbly, curious, witty. She didn’t mind being on the background as long as she was happy with herself. She had changed too, just like herself.

 

_ “She isn’t perfect, but she tries _

_ She is good, but she lies _

_ She is hard on herself _

_ She is broken and won't ask for help _

_ She is messy, but she's kind _

_ She is lonely most of the time _

_ She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie _

_ She is gone, but she used to be mine” _

 

She remembered that girl who loved cooking, who tried to bolster her friends even if she was the one who needed it. Rosie wasn’t a lone wolf, but a mom friend, always taking care of Donna and Tanya heartbreaks of any type. She was a mess, too loud and with her panties hanging from the lamp, with her board of pie receipts and her second handed books. That was the Rosie Tanya fell in love with. But Tanya didn’t like to open herself to anyone, she preferred to hear others opening up. The problem with it was that you ended up emotionally naked in front of God knows who, it made you vulnerable, and neither brunette liked that, s they were always trying to get the other to open up without exemplarasing with it first.

She was mildly happy with was she was writing, but she was afraid of it too. She spent the last six years trying to forget about her, and the wound was still fresh.

 

_ “It's not what I asked for _

_ Sometimes life just slips in through a back door _

_ And carves out a person and makes you believe it's all true _

_ And now I've got you” _

 

But she didn’t have her, that was the main issue here. Maybe having somebody by her side would have made her mediocre life bearable, but she was all by herself, she had turned into some vulgar busy woman who smoke Malboro between shifts and cured all the time. That was her now. She hated herself with a passion, but what else could she do?

 

_ “And you're not what I asked for _

_ If I'm honest, I know I would give it all back _

_ For a chance to start over and rewrite an ending or two _

_ For the girl that I knew” _

 

Her reflection on the scratched surface of the piano was looking at her with disapproval, damning her for dwelling on her past and her internal shit. Maybe if she smiled more, if she said “hello” and “thank you”... maybe she would have some pretty girl by her side, but it was not the case. Stop thinking about it Tanya, it’s worthless. What’s done is done, deal with it.

 

_ “Who'll be reckless, just enough _

_ Who'll get hurt, but who learns how to toughen up _

_ When she's bruised and gets used by a man who can't love _

_ And then she'll get stuck _

_ And be scared of the life that's inside her _

_ Growing stronger each day 'til it finally reminds her _

_ To fight just a little, to bring back the fire in her eyes _

_ That's been gone, but used to be mine _

_ Used to be mine” _

 

She knew Rosie, she knew how brave and innocent she was, how much she suffered because of Bill. She may haven’t seen her in years, but she knew she was hurting. She was pregnant again, trying to divorce a womanizer who spent too much time travelling, trying to keep up with work and motherhood. Tanya was proud of her, but she also knew that, even if Donna didn’t tell her, was exhausted, searching for a pause button, lifeless just like Tanya. And if she had the money and enough alcohol in her system, maybe Tanya would go to Sweden to save Rosie, but she was already locked in her own prison battling her own demons and she had no time to save others, even if the old Tanya inside of her wanted to do so.

 

_ “She is messy, but she's kind _

_ She is lonely most of the time _

_ She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie _

_ She is gone, but she used to be mine” _

 

Looking at the song, at what she had created in what felt like just an hour, she felt proud for once in her life. She did that, no one else, and maybe they didn’t hire her, maybe they laughed at her in her face, but being a cold bitch was a harsh job and she was tired of her façade.

So she went to the theatre with her book in her bag and prayed she got the job because the old Tanya was back.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like it, leave kudos or comment! What do you think that's gonna happen? Is Tanya gonna get hired? Is Rosie gonna divorce? Check my twitter and curious cat (with the same username) to keep up! And of course, feel free to ask for anything. Thanks for reading


End file.
